Day 3 - Overlord: Raising Hell and X-COM: Enforcer

Overlord: Raising Hell

I started tonight with the Overlord expansion I had to skip earlier. I've never played an Overlord game before, but thankfully going straight to the expansion didn't penalize me. It had an optional tutorial which taught be the basics of commanding and beating my minions, and then guided me through a series of increases in power and minion counts.

Overlord is very similar to Pikmin and that one mini-game in the collection of mini-games that is Brutal Legend, the gameplay consisting primarily of ordering your minions to do things. The first 54 minutes of gameplay was extremely simple. I primarily sent off my minions (of which I had only one type at this point) by left clicking. Occasionally, but very rarely, I might right-click to call them back. I quickly learned that the one spell I had (fireball) was very situational, and of little use the majority of the time. I could use my sword, but that Overlord, despite all his heavy armor, can take a hit about as well as my little sister can.

The minions are really the stars of this game. They'll do whatever you command, which is primarily to smash things. Intelligence doesn't come into play though; the game warns that they will pick up equipment automatically, even if it's useless. That being said, I still laughed when a couple of the imps put on their pumpkin heads. They pick up gold they find and take it to you saying adorable things like "For the Master".
There's a tower that you collect upgrades for, and gold you collect, but so far everything was 100% linear, and therefore not rewarding in the slightest. I'm not sure where that mechanic is going. Overall the game was very simple and repetitious. I found myself mostly just spam clicking on everything and not really having any option for strategy. I'm sure the game gets deeper, but I don't foresee it shedding the linear and repetitive gameplay enough to see it through.

X-COM: Enforcer

I love X-COM, UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown, Terror From The Deep and even Apocalypse are among my all-time favorite games. Recently 2K has decided to revive the franchise, somewhat, first by announcing a shooter called XCOM. For all those, myself included, that think no good can come from this need look no further for proof.
Enforcer puts you in the role of a character, who I suspect may be a robot, named Enforcer. I'm not sure what X-COM game had enforcers, but there you have it. You start off in a lab where a scientist tells you (with full voice acting!) that you're an Enforcer and he wants you to kill aliens, or something, I dunno. It was hard to listen to him. A brief tutorial teaches you how to kill enemies, and more importantly their spawners, and warns you that you can only ever carry one gun, then throws you into the first mission.

The game, based on the Unreal Engine, definitely looks and feels like Unreal Tournament with more color, but that's where the comparison ends. Gameplay is very fast-paced, primarily consisting of you running around and killing everything around you. Enemies drop data discs that can allow upgrades, and you will find weapon spawns on the ground. Weapons spawned will come with a small amount of ammo, and if that runs out you'll resort back to your laser pistol. The problem is, though, that the weapons you pick up aren't really much better. All the enemies I encountered died in one hit, only the spawners and bosses took more, so why would I want a flamethrower with a quarter of the range, or a saw blade launcher with half the fire rate? Neither one was particularly useful, but you are CONSTANTLY running over weapons. Even if you have a preferred one, it's fairly difficult to hold onto it for long.

By about the third or fourth level I left the base and entered a town, where I imagined my goal was the save the people. I spent a good 10 minutes killing all the aliens on the map, but couldn't proceed. It wasn't until my rage got the better of me that I realized running into the townspeople somehow saves them. That's right, killing all the aliens doesn't do shit, but let me run into you and I'll... give you a piggy-back ride out of here?

You collect data disks while playing, and if you manage to get all the letters to spell BONUS in any level, you get to visit a bonus level that's chock full of crates to shoot with more disks inside. Plus you get bonus disks for clearing levels. All those disks can be used to upgrade your weapons, special abilities and character in ways that are not at all clear. It's all really pointless too, as you can plow through anything with little skill.

This is a terrible game that is good for little other than some mindless action. It feels like Gauntlet with a gun, but not in a good way, because that would be awesome. The 37 minutes I played this game was a stretch, as I was ready to quit after the second or third level, and I will not be going back to it.

Notes

Work and life prevents me from playing as much during weeknights as I'd like, but progress was still made today. I've acquired several missing downloads, so I'm more prepared to tackle the list going forward.

8 games down, 190 hours to go!

Album: Steam Challenge: Day 003